do all
Kate told him, and never bothered himself about the business, except
when he had to buy fresh supplies in the wine and spirit line. There he
was first chop. You couldn't lick him for quality. And so the place got
a name.

But where was Jeanie all this time? That was what Jim put me up to ask
the first night we came. 'Oh! Jeanie, poor girl, she was stopping with
her aunt in Melbourne.' But Kate had written to her, and she was coming
up in a few weeks. This put Jim into great heart. What with the regular
work and the doing well in the gold line, and Jeanie coming up, poor old
Jim looked that happy that he was a different man. No wonder the police
didn't know him. He had grown out of his old looks and ways; and though
they rubbed shoulders with us every day, no one had eyes sharp enough to
see that James Henderson and his brother Dick--mates with the best
men on the field--were escaped prisoners, and had a big reward on them
besides.

Nobody knew it, and that was pretty nigh as good as if it wasn't true.
So we held on, and made money hand over fist. We used to go up to the
hotel whenever we'd an evening to spare, but that wasn't often. We
intended to keep our money this time, and no publican was to be any the
better for our hard work.

As for Kate, I couldn't make her out. Most times she'd be that pleasant
and jolly no one could help liking her. She had a way of talking to me
and telling me everything that happened, because I was an old friend she
said--that pretty nigh knocked me over, I tell you. Other times she was
that savage and violent no one would go near her. She didn't care who it
was--servants or customers, they all gave her a wide berth when she
was in her tantrums. As for old Mullockson, he used to take a drive to
Sawpit Gully or Ten-Mile as soon as ever he saw what o'clock it was--and
glad to clear out, too. She never dropped on to me, somehow. Perhaps she
thought she'd get as good as she gave; I wasn't over good to lead, and
couldn't be drove at the best of times. No! not by no woman that ever
stepped.

One evening Starlight and his two swell friends comes in, quite
accidental like. They sat down at a small table by themselves and
ordered a couple of bottles of foreign wine. There was plenty of that
if you liked to pay a guinea a bottle. I remember when common brandy was
that price at first, and I've seen it fetched out of a doctor's tent as
medicine. It paid him better than his salts and rhubarb